


Of Everyone I Ever Knew I've Gotten Close To You, I've Grown Attached To You Being Here {Of Everyone I Ever Knew I've LearnedTo Count On You As One Of My Fingers}

by Fake_Brit



Series: Sigh no more [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), F/M, Natasha-centric, canon up to Capitan America:The Winter Soldier, non aou compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:36:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4144884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fake_Brit/pseuds/Fake_Brit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha, Clint and their relationship from its beginning as a partnership to something more. All through the movies with the exception of AoU, which included as an AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I: The Tale Of The Widow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawktasha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawktasha/gifts).



> Hello, Marvel fandom. I've had this thing in mind ever since I saw AoU in april. It's been tough to write, but I hope you like it. Please, let me know how it was.  
> Title comes from Prosthetic Love by Typhoon.  
> A couple notes on the foreign terms:  
> -в виде сердца means sweetheart (Or so the internet tells me)  
> -Una vodka liscia perfavore: a straight vodka please  
> \- Buonasera signorina: good evening miss  
> \- Buona sera signore: good evening mister  
> Hope you guys like it

She doesn’t go by a name.

( _her head is filled to the brim, though. Names upon names echoing like a distant explosion in her skull._

_ Natalia crashes into Nina who stumbles into Natalie and its French variation. _

_ Natalie bumps into a thousand other names, shattering herself. _

_ They all fall apart, leaving slices and syllables and sounds bleeding into her brain.) _

She is just Death’s hand – bathes in the blood of her targets and falls asleep to their silent pleas.

She dresses in Russian skin, drowning vodka and sorrows in the long restless nights where sleep won’t come and she will lie there, on the mattress they choose, its base creaking under her weight, her stomach churning as though she’s one minute away from dry heaving.

“ _Do it for the_ _glory of the Soviet Union_ ,” they say just before she slips into bed _._

Do it. Do it. Do it. 

_ Threaten that man, Natalia _

_ Kill him, Natalia. _

_ Pull the trigger, _ _Natalia._

It all comes down to these three soft-spoken phrases. They become her routine, her creed, her everything.

There is no love here.

Just coldness. 

( _She remembers, at four, what love is. Mama’s hugs. Her stew for dinner. Papa and his stories while she sits on an old armchair.)_

There is training. It’s so exhausting she keeps deep blue bruises for days.

She and the other girls spar, sometimes. 

_ You’re good _ , they tell her, nodding their approval briefly. They even smile the shadow of smile, once in a while, their lips so quick it seems a ghost.

Sometimes, they dance, and Natalia has no idea why but she wakes up shivering as though she were out in the snow and naked when she remembers that in the middle of the night.

There is sparring and training and dancing and hiding here.

But there is no love.

( _When she asks about that, at seven, they whisper, quietly, as though their very voices were hollow, love is for children._

_ It haunts her for years: she hears it every night until she stops wondering whether it is true or not. _

_ Black Widows have never needed love. And since Natalia is one, she supposes she doesn’t either. _

_ “Do you feel love, Natalia?” Their question is hollow. There’s no room for emotions in the Red Room, she knows this. _

_ She says, “Love is for children,” _

_ They grin up at her blank face, satisfaction shining in their eyes. _

_ She’s the Black Widow. _

_ She’s theirjewel, their weapon. _

_ And for her, there is no love. _

_ There has never been.) _

She stops thinking about love and emotions and she just blocks it all out: her body locks the pain out, and she keeps going breath after breath, mission after mission, target after target.

Every gunshot comes with an echo and every echo comes with deep silence.

It’s a melody she’s come to love.

( _But at night, she hears and feels. She’s in a room during a fire._

_ She can’t see much, but she is sure she has been shivering for hours – her body groaning due to uncomfortable position. _

_ She chants relentlessly, it will be fine. Every thing will be fine. We all are going to get out of here. _

_ There’s ash and fire and coughing. _

_ A woman sobs, “Go,  _ _ в _ __ _ виде _ __ _ сердца _ _ ,” her voice is strained, as though her throat were filled withsomething that makes breathing look – and presumably feel – like running without ever catching a break until her lungs just reach the giving up point and they crumble to dust inside of her rib cage. _

_ Natalia has no idea why, but her throat tightens just as her younger self jumps out of the small window on the left side of the room. _

_ She lands in the snow, coughing. A scream is waiting to come out, resting impatiently on her tongue. Burning it, even. _

_ Her lower lip slips forward, barely grazing the snow. _

_ And...) _

Natalia screams so hard she fears her throat might end up being as raw as it would be in a post punishment state.

Her head presses into the pillow, her voice being muffled through the fabric.

In the morning, she wakes up to a damp pillow.

She doesn’t mention it.

Love is for children, after all.

-:-

The mission was simple: gather intel, deliver said intel, collect the payment and vanish into thin air.

She’s pretty sure it’s her last night here. The USB is on her. _Mission accomplished_.

An exhale escapes her throat, echoing in the silence of night time.

She’ll never admit any such thing, but being is the closest to Christian hell she’s ever been, – if she believed in God, she would probably have thought of what her nights in St. Petersburg have been like as _Hell on Earth or the Mighty Apocalypse -_ her mind split between flashes of what is true and what may be and what could have been. All clothed in what is false but feels so fucking real it makes her dizzy.

St Petersburg is as cold as she’s been taught to be.

It’s as white as the void they have morphed her into.

And yet, its snow drips with blood, and so do her hands.

( _She feels like a bomb that might explode any minute now, leaving behind blood and flesh that are probably as false as what her brain has learned to deem true. With a side of Death, of course.)_

Don’t think. You are the Black Widow _:_ born to kill.

Natalia starts running, tracing patterns in the snow, trying to put distance between herself and the wick that could light her flame until all that remained afterwards was nothing but ashes, the city being only a shadow dancing in her peripheral vision.

She doesn’t know – _doesn’t really want to._ It’d be nothing but defeat, she reasons. (Is it really me, she wonders, her voice small and trembling) – how much time she spends like that, passing buildings in a flash, bricks and concrete, history and youth, something within her screaming, _get away from this._

She does.

She gets away, in the end.

( _She gets away, in terms of flesh. But the girl who leaves St. Petersburg is just a body floating adrift in a sea of lies and half truths, who has no name that feels like it is truly her own.)_

She leaves the city, and she’s not Natalia anymore.

She’s a ghost.

(Legend has it, Death travels with ghosts, no matter where they come from or who they were before their lives ended. 

_ It’s only fitting. _ )

-:-

She is still a ghost, still unsure about anything and everything, when he finds her.

She’s not sure how long it’s been, though. She’s been all over the world and back, her hands redder and redder as time passes.

It’s a cycle: move from city to city, each time in yet another skin, find your target and get it bloody over with. 

Pun very intended. 

(Whenever the cycle is broken, her head fills with question such as, _who am I ? What am I doing,_ and it’s like she’s been stuck in St. Petersburg all the while, never taking a damn step.

The only thing that puts her at ease is the very same that tore her to pieces. _Talk about irony being a bitch._ )

This time, it’s Rome.

She’s supposed to kill a mafia deserter before he spills the beans about the twists and turns that their precious dirty money has bumped into – foreign banks, fake names, rich pockets getting even richer, the whole deal buried beneath big words.

A piece of cake, really.

She has spent three nights tailing the guy, looking for a moment in his routine that could fit in her agenda of shadows and secrecy.

So far, _Roma caput mundi_ hasn’t been kind on that front. The Guy has done nothing but spend three nights in a row drinking his liver to shit, complete with female attendants drooling over his expansive suit because _he breathes money._

Tonight, Money Breather is busying himself with scotch – third time was less than ten minutes ago – and smiling brightly at a blonde girl, eyebrows arching upwards in suggestion for post drinking activities.

_ Same old, huh? _

Sometimes when she is on missions like this one, where she spends half of the time tailing, – which, just for the record, she loathes – she wonders about how the hell being drooled on equals to being turned on. 

She’s come to one simple conclusion: men using their dicks to think instead of their brains? That’s a possibility. Men in a possible death causing situation thinking with their genitals? It’s a bloody win.

Tomorrow will be the day where good ol’ Money Breatherknows what getting bitten by the Black Widow feels like.

-:-

The club – _Le Notti di Roma_ , a wooden panel hanging above the door says in curvy red letters. Even the font yells, _Rich Guys Club,_ here. _Do not cross if your checks aren’t the ones with four zeros or more_ – is packed.

Nadia steps into the bar room, her red dress shining in the delicate white light that breaks into different hues of different colors as though it were following a choreography, keeping up with the rhythm like a dancer after hours of rehearsal – each movement swift and similar to a dream for those who watch, their eyes locked on the scene as though they had been hypnotized upon entering.

She heads toward the bar, her expression innocent. Almost child-like, actually.

“Una vodka liscia, per favore,” Nadia places her order in a small voice, her mind already focused on other things, such as drawing her target in.

She takes small sips, thoroughly assessing the people in the room: the ones who dance, bodies moving to the fast beat of a disco song, getting close to each other and then far away in the space of seconds, depicting a never-ending chase; the ones who drink, their face sullen as they lose themselves to alcohol, memories pressing against their eyes as dark as their fits when the bartender doesn’t serve them or if someone tries to drag them away from the counter and their dose of liquid solution; the ones who chat mindlessly, their small talks lost in the chaos of the club.

The glass is cold against her hand, the vodka tastes like juice.

She rotates just enough for Del fiore to spot her.

He gives her a long once-over, his eyes twinkling a bit as they go downward, his lips curving like a cat’s when he spots an interesting mouse.

_ Bingo. _

He gets up, his whiskey forgotten on the counter beside his stool.

_ Time to feast, Widow. _

She stays still, smiling lightly as he approaches.

“Buonasera, signorina,” he tells her in a low voice. His eyes never leave her face, as though he were waiting for it to crumble under his gaze.

She replies in a delicate, slightly accented voice. “Buonasera, signore,”

Del fiore plops on the stool next to hers, switching to English. “What brings you here,” he pauses to nod at the bartender who has just come their way.

“Nadia,” she says, smiling at his bright curiosity.

A glass of whiskey slides toward Del fiore. His attention, though, is all on her.

_ Already? _ She thinks. _Looks like I am going to be done earlier than I’d originally thought. What a pity. I like it here._

“I’m here to study architecture,” her voice is relaxed. Flirty, even. And, as far as Del fiore is concerned, there is nothing else. “If I may, mister, what are _you_ doing here?” She asks, her tone dropping to a whisper.

A moment passes, during which the only noise is that of the ice clattering against the glass as he moves it toward his mouths and takes a long sip.

“I can’t tell you,” he says, smirking at her. “If I did, I’m afraid I would have to kill you. And that, “he says, getting close enough to mutter in her ear, “Would be a loss humanity would cry about for centuries.”

His hands slips on the curve of her neck just as his mouth finds hers.

Nadia lets him kiss her, – slowly, at first. And then roughly, just like she has seen him kiss any girl in the last three days – as though she has really been swept off her feet.

She lets him take her out of the club, but instead of being carried into a fantasy like she has led him to believe she wants, she is the one that leads him into a nightmare.

She stabs him once they are alone. It’s quick, and he dies with surprise shining in his eyes.

Her job is done and it has just started to rain in the Eternal City.

She is soaked by the time she feels the end of the bow trained towards her and finds herself staring right back in the eyes of Hawkeye.

-:-

The rain has gotten everywhere, and for some reasonit has even solidified her body.

She could out-maneuver him and run away unscathed, but she does not do either.

She stays where she is, pinned to the concrete, and stares straight at him, as though she were provoking him – encouraging him, even – to knock the arrow and put it through her.

_ (And break the cycle.) _

He does knock it, – and she can’t help but notice, _damn, he’s fast_ – however, it stays like that, still and ready, pointing at her as if it served as a signal that yells, _see the redhead over there? That’s the Black Widow, a worldwide known and wanted assassin._

(It is her mind saying the rest, actually. _And I will be her end._ )

The arrow, it turns out, is not her end. And neither is Hawkeye.

The rain keeps falling as tension is burning through her bones like a wild fire eating at everything it encounters on its lonely path towards destruction.

Water lands on her skin, on her hair – now completely drenched and undoubtedly messy, almost proving the fight and the sentence that has yet to come – and on her dress, and yet the fire keeps on burning.

Her body is full of ashes, as she waits.

She is an ashtray in the Eternal City, full of death and red and wounds, waiting to be blown out of the water.

He doesn’t blow her. She is waiting for it, her breath locked away in her throat, her body still as a stone. _She deserves this._

She is waiting as Hawkeye does nothing but stare at her, bow trained and water dripping off his clothes.

_ Maybe he’s a slow one. _ Personally speaking, Natalia has never liked toying with her targets. When she was a little kid being trained to walk hand in hand with Death, she was told, _be quick and clean, Natalia. As soon as you are done, go back in the shadows. It’s in the shadows, after all,_ her instructor, if he could be called that, – if it isn’t another invention planted in her head to preserve secrecy, he was called Ivan – had whispered, his lips curving in that ghost smile the Red Room was so fond of showing on each face they owned, _that_ w _e all will meet our end._

Seconds tick by and nothing happens. The bow is still pointing at her, almost touching her drenched red dress, her life still unended. 

Her supposed killer doesn’t say anything, either.

They just stay there, underneath the rain that has now turned into a needle-dropped drizzle.

Natalia feels like there is a bomb waiting for the countdown to turn to zero.

( _And the weird thing is, she’s cheering on that countdown to speed the hell up)_

I should be dead, she mutters to herself as though pondering a mistake in calculation about a mission. _Why am I not dead?_

“Come on, Hawkeye,” she taunts, her voice lost in the sound of the water falling with more and more force by the second – like a whip hitting flesh time and time again until it cracks open and colors everything in a vibrant shade of red. “Are you afraid to crack my oh, so delicate bones too hoarsely? Waiting ‘til dawn breaks to make it poetic? Or,” her lips lift, showing her teeth as she smirks at him, pity flaming up in her eyes. “ Are you waiting for the quaking in your badass leather boots to settle ‘cause you can’t hide your fear any longer now that you’ve come face to face with me? Which one is it, Bird Guy?”

No response. It looks like time has stopped and her words -malicious and unnerving to a fault – have come to a halt in mid air, leaving him completely unconcerned: his expression does not change nor does his grip on the bow loosen. His eyes, however, – as clear as the fuzzy morning sky that her earliest, untainted memories contain little glimpses of – run along her entire figure, scrutinizing, memorizing, assessing every inch of her – both physically and mentally, much to Natalia’s dismay.

It feels as though she is being uncovered and taken apart limb by limb and then, once he’s satisfied of the image he got out of that, put back together, leaving her burning and truthful and so vulnerable before his eyes.

Natalia does not like that feeling one bit.

As the heavy rain bathes the streets of Eternal City, she snaps, breaking the control she had gathered – or thought she had. After all, her life, her _entire being_ , could be nothing but an ensemble of ghosts – in the tiniestof little pieces.

She moves out of the trajectory of his bow, her left leg propped forward.

She tries to get close enough to have him tripping, but he retracts even further away. _Worth a shot,_ she thinks as she stops a moment to collect her knife from its hiding spot in her thigh. 

The alley they have infiltrated into is dark and deserted, the perfect place to dump a body once this is all over.

Knife in hand, Natalia makes her way towardthe abandoned back stairs on her right. _He’s surely perched on the highest one, his bow in hand, waiting for me to go mad in this damp little maze._

She stops a couple of feet away, just as a lone cat scurries off looking for days’ old food.

_ Sorry to break your dozing off, Hawk, but I don’t like to be chased; I like doing the chasing. _

She clutches the knife tighter as she makes her way up the old stairs, adrenaline tumbling through her veins like a melody. _About time._

As soon as she sets foot on the roof, he comes at her, his hands, now bow free, blocking her in his grip.

She spins, planting one of her elbows in his ribs hard enough that he has to release her. She points her knife at him, mere inches away from his body,and she mutters mockingly, “That’s the best you can do? I didn’t know hawks were that easy to kill.”

He smiles at her, briefly, as though he were considering how funny this would come to be later. _Must be pretty close to graveyard dirt to find this a funny after death tale._

He kicks her knee, and before she can get up or wonder how the hell he has done it, he has his bow trained on her, his arrow in position.

_ (Looks like this is truly the end of the cycle, Natalia, she whispers to herself. And it’s going to be just as sharp as the beginning was.) _

“What are you waiting for,” she questions, her voice louder than it has ever been up to now. “I have _killed_ that man and countless others in ways that would take your sleep away forever if I ever were to tell you. I have killed and tortured and manipulated people without ever feeling the slightest hint of remorse – I’ve even _enjoyed_ it, for fuck’s sake,” her voice trembles on the last bit, her mind screaming, as if stuck, _that is true, do it, do it, do it_. And then, _I don’t know whether I enjoyed it or not, but I deserve it anyway so do it, you coward_. “ _Kill me,”_ she says, and she prepares herself to nothingness.

He doesn’t.

“KILL ME,” this time, she roars it into the night, her voice almost delirious.

He lets her live yet again, but this time he says, “No,” he lowers the bow and sets it aside, helping her up. “I’m not gonna kill you, Widow.”

She is dizzy, thoughts swimming in her brain and crashing against each other. “Why?”

“Because you and I… we’ve both been shaped into something we would have never chosen to be willingly,” his eyes cloud over, as though he has been swept back into that moment. “I got my second chance years ago,” he goes on, whispering like he’s telling her a secret no one else can hear. “You, on the other hand, seem to never have experienced such a thing and I have zero intensions whatsoever of impersonating the pot to your cattle.”

She is once again pinned to the floor, uncertainty weighting her down. _Don’t fall into this. It’s surely some kind of trick._

A smile creeps into his voice, softening it, as he says, “Irony has had enough hits on me for a lifetime,”

Natalia doesn’t let her muscles untighten. She asks, her voice wary, “Why should I come with you to S.H.I.E.L.D?I’d do nothing different from what I usually do,”

He nods. “True, the actions wouldn’t change. But the motives definitely would.” He holds his hand out, gently grazing her fingers.

She’s never been touched gently.

“Besides, you could have a rematch to balance this one. Whatcha say, Natalia Romanova?”

She takes his hand and whispers, “I say your ass is going to burn for days, Hawk.”

“Barton,” he murmurs, grinning lightly at her. “My name’s Clint Barton.”

_ (The cycle is broken, Natalia) _

_ (You’re no longer a weapon in the most brutal sense) _

“Clint,” she says firmly, as they travel towards his – their – allies, looking at him as though telling him will make it real. “Call me Natasha, from now on.”

(She chooses Natasha of all names because it reminds her of buried affection some she can’t quite put her finger on once gave her, of what she’s been robbed of so carelessly, of the warmth she has sought out and been denied until now. 

She chooses Natasha to start anew and yet, never forget)

She thought telling Clint wouldn’t be that big of a step, and instead it is.

When he says the name in a soft – reverent, even. But that is something she will come to realize much, much later – voice it is like it gets sewn onto her skin. 

-:-

Training for S.H.I.E.L.D isn’t much different from what Natasha – her new name rolls off her tongue with surprising ease. She has stumbled a few times, sure, but it feels so incredibly hers that sometimes, in the early hours of morning, the rush of joy and self-awareness, as the psychologist S.H.I.E.L.D assigned her calls it, overwhelms her so much that she feels dizzy with it – is used to: sparring, although there is no such belief as _win or die_ here.

Upon her unanticipated arrival Director Fury had shot Agent Barton – he’s told her to call him Clint countless times, but Natasha is not what Americans would call _a warm and fuzzy_ person – a look which she had deemed to be the origin of the saying _if looks could kill_.

“Barton,” he’d drawled in a low voice, his eyes narrowing. “Care to explain why the fuck is she here and not lying lifeless in a ditch somewhere?”

The room had seemed to shrink with the tension rolling off him.

Clint had taken a small step forward and explained himself in a neutral tone, his phrases short and to the point, “With all due respect, Director. She’s not chosen the hell she currently stands for, and, if memory serves me rightly, neither had I. She was used for shitty aims, true that. But who says that she can’t use her…” he hesitated, as though he couldn’t find the right word. It was the first time someone tried not to speak of her with cruelty.

It felt nice.

( _Niceties are debts, Natalia._ Ivan’s voice echoed in her head, clear as if he was right beside her. _And we cannot afford to leave debts unpaid.)_

“Abilities,” Hawkeye went on, never taking his eyes off the Director’s dubious face. “To do some good? There’s nothing excluding that possibility, so I brought her here. And if you’re going to have my ass for this, so be it. I just want to point out that this could’ve been me, ten years ago. But it wasn’t. _Thanks to you_. Or thanks to Coulson who acted on your input, if you want me to be specific,” he smiled widely, but it was gone so quickly that Natasha had to wonder if she had imagined it – damn, this was really messing her up. _Say the word already._

“I was given a second chance. And I think she should be given one as well. Of course, though, that’s up to you.”

Silence followed. Natasha couldn’t tell how long it lasted, though.Usually, she wasn’t a nervous person, but Fury’s stalling was keeping her on her toes. She had come to realize that she did value her life, after all.

Barton had gone still, frozen on the spot. He looked like he was going to explode any minute now, no matter what answer Fury was going to give.

“You really do have a thing for strays, Barton.” Fury seemed calm.

_ Seemed  _ being the key-word.

He continued, and the calm in his voice died out. “She’s your responsibility, meaning that if she fucks it up, it’s on you. Which is why, from now on, you two are partners, understood?” his voice left no room for protests.

Strike Team Delta was formed and there was no getting out of it.

-:-

There have been other missions before Budapest. Smaller ones, true, but this ain’t their first rodeo en couple so it shouldn’t be that complicated.

They are here to uncover an unit that has some kind of ties to Hydra and get information.

It’s a long mission: nearly a month undercover, acquiring details on details, planning.

(Their nights are spent in the dark of a hotel room, sharing details. They have been partners for over a year now, but it’s been very little since Natasha decided to give a go to the idea of opening up.

She’s given him pieces of what she has gone through before, but the only person who has known about the bits with gore so far is her psychologist – and only because of protocol.

She tells him about the Red Room, about the nightmares, about not knowing herself up until she came to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Barton doesn’t bat an eye. He listens, and shares bits of his own mess, too.

“My father was an alcoholic. He…” his voice stops, as if cut by an invisible blade. Natasha doesn’t prod him or speak a few words, not yet. She waits for himlike he has done for her. _Because he is the one who has to beat this. I can only help him get through it._ “He beat the shit out of us – my mom, my brother and me. At some pointhe died and my brother and I made a run for it,” he smiles fondly. Once again wide and short-lived. Seems to be a thing for him. “We joined the circus and it worked up well for a bit. Then, restlessness and crime came into the game and I think that if it hadn’t been for Coulson I would’ve ended up tangled in something similar to the Room – or straight in jail for who knows how long,”

She says, “I’m glad you didn’t” and for once in her life not being able to sleep doesn’t feel that bad.

He doesn’t know everything, but he knows what she used to think no ever could.)

It’s another night that adds something to their partnership.

They aren’t done planning quite yet, but they are close, and they try not to talk much at night anymore.

They need to save energy and the appearances lest anything goes even remotely close south.

She dreams she’s back in the Red Room, training to improve her gun aim.

“Hit the target, Natalia,” they bark at her, low and demanding and never stopping. “Hit it. Hit. _Hit._ Make us proud”

She is cold and she is fading and she is nothing but a weapon.

She jolts awake. 

There’s an arm on her skin. “Who the fuck are you,” she spits in Russian angry and hiss-like.

The man stares at her, dumbstruck, as if he expected every reaction but this.

She twists his arm, ignoring his muffled protest, and reaches for the gun – her gun – that’s sitting on the nightstand.

She aims, puts her fingers on the trigger.

He looks straight at her, unflinching and his lips utter a simple, “ _Natasha,”_

“That’s your last word?” she snarls, her voice icy. “You must really like how she feels under you, huh?”

“Nat, it’s Barton.” He says, his voice tickling her ears. He doesn’t move, – _fool –_ if anything, he gets closer and reprises his whispering. “Goddammit, Tasha. It’s me, your partner. The guy you couldn’t take down in Rome, remember?”

Her fingers tremble around the trigger.

_ Rome.  _ Her head throbs so much she worries it might crack.

Memories pop up in her head, quick and blinding like a series of well-placed blows.

_ “I think she should be given one, as well,” _

_ “You can have a rematch for this,” _

_ “Watch out, Widow, at your five,” _

_ “Well played, Tasha,” _

She blinks, the throbbing in her head still present but less dominant. 

She places a strand of red hair, sweaty to her touch as though she had been sparring for hours, behind her left ear and asks in a small voice, “Barton?”

He takes a couple of breaths and grins up at her from his side of the bed. “Welcome back, Tasha.”

-:-

The building is on fire. _Lucky bastards._

She sees him going down just as she kicks one in the shins. 

“Hawkeye is down.” She mutters into the comm, quick and emotionless. (she hopes) “I repeat: Hawkeye is down. Need evac asap.”

She follows him into Medical, glaring at those who try to hush her out.

_ No way in hell I’m leaving him now. _

She used not to go by any name, to have nothing to lose but pieces of herself.

Now, though, she has a name and people to lose.

She is Natasha Romanov, an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Code name: Black Widow.

She has a partner who watches her back and she plans to do the same for as long as she breathes.

( _It’s not love, bear it in mind. She owes him a debt, after all. And she has found a way to repay him.)_

 

 

 

 

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	2. Act II: Monsters And Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of The Avengers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, guys, but I've had few chances of sitting and writing. Nevertheless, here's chapter two. As you might have noticed I decided to go with one movie per chapter because they get very beast-long and rewatching each and writing would've meant updating once a month.   
> Until nex time with CA:tws  
> Disclaimer: the dialogues are taken from the movie and I do not make any profit off it.

She has been back to Russia before this. She has walked among the faces that populated her dreams – those dreams that she’s woken up from for years, wondering whether or not the things she stared up at were real, whether she was still herself or if _Natasha Romanoff_ had ever been herself at all – and she has made them pay.

(Her dreams left her feeling hollow. She has left Russia through a path of fire and ashes, coming back as a phoenix, reborn and strong and her own person, but on some nights, as she lies awake, her scars ache and her flesh screams in agony at each memory they evoke. Some are a fake, a seed placed in her to have cruelty bloom in her, a reminder of what life wanted to make, – _had made of her,_ is what the night terrors throw at her in a hiss, making her toss and turn in the sheets on a good night and shoot people on a bad one – and yet she feels as though they were real.

Her fingers _do_ clench and her skin _is_ covered in sweat. Her breath does feel like she has been running for hours jumping in her chest, restless and heavy in her mouth.

Sometimes she can tell: there’s a detail out of place, a face that blurs into another, a faint pulse in one of her temples. 

On a bad night, when she comes out of it – pale as chalk, her limbs vibrating with tremors that seem to have a life of their own – her skull feels as if it’s about to crack open, the-lies-that-aren’t-lies but feel like lies seen with her eyes open, vicious and bitter in her bloodstream, heavy against her lids, weighting in her brain like a sack of peddles filled in its full capacity, seconds away from making its way out one pounding movement after another.

Once she awakens after one of those nights, her sparring with Clint makes trainees faint: a dance of blows and kicks and feral grins. She has him by the throat and he turns them around, freeing himself and sending her flying across the mat.Before she can get back up he kicks her, his face an exact replica of Rome in its closeness.

She has him tripping and rolls on the top of him, her knees pressing against his abdomen, hard and relentless.

He _had_ promised a rematch a long time ago. _And they both got several._

She grins as she lets him go and gets back on her feet, small and quick. 

Afterward, when they the only two people in the training room, their bodies too alert to do anything else, he asks, “You okay, Nat?” his words rush against the skin of her neck, a quiet murmur traveling in the storm of her adrenaline-filled blood. “You seemed kind of shaken earlier,”

Clint has gotten good at reading her. _Too good_ , she muses. She’s supposed to be a fortress that has secrets as bricks and deception as its foundation, yet, in his eyes, she is an open book, as easy to read as the alphabet.

“Mostly,” she shrugs, her voice calm. She isn’t entirely lying. Had this happened shorty before or after she joined S.H.I.E.L.D she would be a mess right now, punching her way through whoever or whatever was available, rage radiating off her like heat, a hurricane boiling in her bones and blood, fiery and unstoppable.

Clint cuts her a look, narrowed eyes and furrowed brows included. _Cut the crap, Tasha._

He stays silent, though.

Natasha breaks his hold, pushing him down and forcing him there with a swift movement of her arm, her wrist pressing down his chest.

“I had a nightmare,” she admits in an even voice, not daring to look up. “A bad one.”

She exhales, her chest lifting in a blink. _One… two… three…_

“You could’ve woken me,” he mutters, his words heavy with something she has heard for too many times. It’s not exactly reproach, – nor is it pity – more of a soft reminder, _I’m here for you_.

It feels like driving the knife further into the wound, so to speak.

_ We do not leave debts unpaid, _ Ivan says in her ear with a hollow whisper. _If possible, we avoid them._

She nods,both to Clint and the ways she seems to fail to leave behind, and says, “I know,” as he draws her closer, his arm covering her bare neck, warm and gentle, like that gesture alone might erase the terror)

This time, her mind isn’t screaming names at her, urging her to find them and rip them apart and bathe mercilessly in someone’s blood one last time.

She has a mission here. The storm she carries within her has no way of sneaking out of her control and run free, damage erupting wild and massive in its tail.

Finding Luchkov is easy enough: there is struggle – however light and forced – and there is bragging on her part, just as planned. 

“I am the Black Widow,” she says in Russian, her voice skilled at lying as it is, layers the words in pride and confidence. Glee, even. 

_ Let them see me like that, _ she relents to herself in the privacy of her mind, _let them feel it ringing true in their ears_.

“And you people have nothing on me,”

She ends up being tied to a chair, her face pressed to the hands of an unnamed thug, who likes to press his fingers in the hollow of her cheeks.

She thinks, her face blank under the bright lights, _enjoy it. It’s gonna end, sooner or later. And that won’t be as soft as this._

Luchkov walks up to her chair in controlled steps. His face gleeful and smiling as his eyes take her tied-up figure in.

Satisfaction is visible on his features, but his voice is as far from satisfied as she is from impressed. “This is not how I wanted the evening to go,” he says, his tone calm as though this is routine for him.

_ There’s two of us, then. _

“I know how you wanted this evening to go,” Natasha mutters, her tone light, her eyes cast up at him, gleaming in _that_ way. _Predictable as a sunny day in august._ “Believe me, this is better,” a little audacity creeps into her tone as her eyes settle their focus on his face, no longer as warm but not cold, either.

“I’d like to know why they sent you to carry out a carrier, a stained glass and other random items,” he asks, annoyance the only clear emotion in his voice. She catches the unsaid part, though. _Are you the best they can do, Widow? Pathetic._

The thug standing behind her chair rocks it, keeping her on the edge of the open floor. Neither safe nor in actual danger.

_ Time to candidate myself for that Oscar, I guess. _

Her face quivers as fear morphs her features, – her brow high over her widening eyes, like the trail of a car on the run, her face pale, her voice lower as though it were either on the brink of stopping in her throat or booming outin hysteria – her lips moving swiftly as they shape her next line. “I thought General Soholob was in charge of the export business,” she says and it is not a question. It is a statement, voiced with the implicit belief that he is nothing but the arm in this. And as such he is less important.

Luchkov falls for it and he repeats, “Soholob?” with disgust as though the comparison alone made him want to throw his organs up. “ _The famous Black Widow,_ ” he snarls, low and disdainful, “Nothing but a pretty face.”

_ Who could have had your ass ages ago, if need be. _

He walks toward the table where tools and pliers lay in a messy scheme.

“You really think I’m pretty?” she says, cheerful. 

One of the thugs opens her mouth, quick and rude.

He hasn’t heard her or pretends not to have and he says, mostly to himself, “ We do not need the Lermontov to transfer the tanks. Tell him, well…” he stops for a heartbeat and switches to English. “You may have to write it down,” the words sharp and cracked like a malfunctioning radio.

A phone rings, metallic and prolonged.

The thug picks it up and hands it to Luchkov, who putsNatasha on after a puzzled look registers on his face.

The phone is cold and hard on her skin. Coulson’s voice fills her ear in a moment and he sounds… Distressed, to say the least. “We need you to come in,” he says.

“Are you kidding?” Her voice is high-pitched in its disbelief. _What the fuck, Phil?_ “I’m working,”

He ignores that. “This takes precedence,” he says in a firm voice tinted with graveness.

“Look,” she argues, still opposing him. She’s losing precious time and intel. “You can’t pull me out of this right now. I’m in the middle of an interrogation and this moron is giving me everything.”

Luchkov objects as soon as links the word _moron_ to his own person, in full pissed off mood by his standards, at least. If it were up to Natasha’s meter of judgement she’d say he has just topped his unsatisfied crybaby mood up a notch.

Her glare delivers such message as efficiently as no Russian curse word ever could have.

“Natasha,” Phil says as though he’d just heaved a sigh. His exasperated face, the one he’s turned to her and Clint so many times after one of their pranks, flashes before her eyes. “Barton’s been compromised.”

_ Bam _ . Something within her snaps loose. Her control, perhaps.

Her breath catches in her throat and plummets back down, slamming against her ribcage like a bull pressing on the matador, fury and power and fear woven together in a fatal blow.

Her emotion submerge her, in this state of breathlessness where heat and coldness surge through her at the same time.

_ Time to cut this short, then. _ “Let me put you on hold,”

Her head burns, questions running free and endless, occupying every inch of space. _Is he alive? Is he not? In case he is, where?_ And the biggest, scariest one. _How has he been compromised?_

The whole thing threatens to swallow her in one swift motion, agony heavy on her shoulders.

She passes the phone to Luchkov, her hand composed as though she hadn’t heard those words.

_ I’m sorry, folks. Time to speed this up. _

She hits them, fast and unconcerned with possible damage. They are down in a matter of seconds. Minutes, at best.

Now untied and somewhat calmer, – if she ignores the dizziness, that is – Natasha asks about Clint. “Where is Barton now?” her voice is cold and detached. Mission mode at its finest.

“We don’t know.” _Comforting much, Phil,_ some part of her snorts to herself.

She holds onto the phone, her fingers tightening around it, its shape impressing on her skin.

“But he’s alive,” there’s no mistaking the relief in her voice that curls her words in a sigh.

“We think so,” Phil says, his tone still grim. “I’ll tell you everything when you get back. First we need you to talk to the Big Guy.”

Natasha tenses. “Coulson, you know Stark trusts me as far as he con throw me.” No complaints there.If she were someone else and had to deal with the Black Widow, she’d constantly be walking on egg shells, too.

“No, I’ve got Stark,” he says. “You get the Big Guy,” he repeats. His voice seems to have gotten even more grim, as though that task resembled Atlantis’. 

He means Banner. The Hulk.

If Clint were here, he’d be whistling his lungs off. “Whoa, Nat. How about you bring something to have him cuddle with? A couple of smashable weapons?”

She hangs up, the phantom of a smile tugging at her lips.

“Oh my God,” she whispers in Russian, her breath easing at the prospect of being distracted.

(Her head, though, is still lost in the sea of wondering)

This is going to be a long ass night.

-:-

Finding Banner is easy. Convincing him to trust her – and by extension, Fury – is not. 

He’s got the _Unworthy-Of-Society-And-Not-Up-For-Dangerous-Cause-I-Prefer-Sulking-It-Up_ look etched into him, stance and gaze and voice and all that.

It’s not that she gets it, but she can’t say she doesn’t either.

(Hers was more like, _I’ve-Never-Known-Society-Cause-They’ve-Always-Wanted-Me-To-Blow-It-Up-And-I-Fear-I-Might-Never-Get-The-Hang-Of-It,_ but yeah, it sucks nonetheless. And, oh, it came with, _I might snap and screw everyone over, do not waste your chances_ with me, _you_ _dumbasses_ , as a side dish. Quite the combo for a mess, huh.)

She tells him The Big Guy has nothing to with this. They need the scientist, not brute, uncontrolled force.

He shakes as his voice thunders over her controlled one, “STOP LYING TO ME,” he roars, his gentleness vanished in the current of anger. So much for keeping in low, eh?

Her sense spike up, caution making her point her gun out of habit.

She’s reacted on instinct, and for a brief second, she wonders whether that’s what people used to do around her. _Trust a sixth sense or fall into habit._

He calms down as soon as he notices her faltering with the gun, as though that some sort of evidence of her claims being true.

His tone softens and he dares smiling at her, kind and relaxed and far, far away from the Green Half of his personality.

Her nerves do not follow suit. If anything, they keep up their tightness, the knots growing complex as Banner’s rage fades inch after inch. 

She realizes that, although her gun is lowered and out of the deal, her fingers keep moving. In patterns, fast and methodical and spastic.

(Her breath doesn’t even out, either. It beats in her ribcage, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.It’s fast. As fast as the speed her world has crumbled at.

And it is as unpredictable as the chance she has of keeping up – or _crumble faster. Give up altogether.Lose herself in the path –_ she can’t assess it.

She can’t because her fear is boiling, waiting for the right time to take away everything that stands in its way.

She used to be good at keeping something – _everything_. Even herself. _Especially herself_ – locked away. At forgetting it existed, even.)

She has convinced Banner. All she has to do now is jump on the train and do everything she can do to not fall off mid-run.

-:-

They don’t know much about Loki’s plan. They contained him, but, as Cap muttered in the quinjet, _it’s too easy._

Natasha’s skin is filled with goosebumps, unease crawling on her body, dancing to the silent song of a bad omen.

She finds him in his cage, his face all lines and composed rage. As though this whole thing made him furious but had to be experienced for some reason.

“There’s not many people that can sneak up on me,” he says as he turns, his greeting low spoken and void of any emotion whatsoever.

Adrenaline is running through her veins, wild and calm all at once.

Her voice is equally low. Relaxed, even, if compared to the frenzy haze of her mind. “But you figured I’d come,”

His whisper is one of those you’d expect to hear anywhere but here and now, with the world on the brink of chaos. Tender and quick and playful. Intimate like the hushed words of a lover in his secluded part of the world. “After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you’d appear as a friend, as a balm. And I’d cooperate.” Correct _– sort of._

_ You may be clever with your words, Loki. But you are forgetting one teeny-tiny detail, here. I was brought up in the shadows of espionage in Saint Mother Russia. Deception has been a companion and a mean, my purpose and my duty. _

_ You ain’t screwing anyone right now. _

“I wanna know what you’ve done to Agent Barton,” she says in a hiss, fast and bitter.

Loki looks at her, his eyes shining with the strangest mix of glee and smugness, as if he had just uncovered her without even breaking a sweat. “I’d say I have expanded his mind,”

Her voice quivers as she keeps talking and her eyes never leave his face. “And once you’ve won,” she pauses to let the phrase sink in. She’s not saying that they will beat him, no, she’sclaiming the contrary. She’s saying, _we’re just trying, that’s what humans do._ “Once you’re king of the mountain. What happens to his mind?”

The glee in his features seems to explode in his voice when he asks, “Is this love, Agent Romanoff?”

It’s like he has solved her riddle.

“Love is for children,” she says as her voice gets colder. The fervor, the anxiety, it all dissolves. Only steel remains. “I owe him a debt,”

Loki’s curiosity only spikes up as he sits down in front of her. _Gotcha, you bastard._ “Tell me,”

Emotion creeps back into her voice at its own will. She’s tried to keep it detached to the chore, but, – _it’s like trying not going all the way to the debt in the first place_ – “Before I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D I, uh,” it all flashes before her eyes: St. Petersburg and being half truth and half lie, Russia and all of these memories that almost cracked her. “Well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn’t care for I used it for, or on. I got on S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar in a bad way,” she can practically feel the rain on her skin. “Agent Barton was sent to kill me,” if she closes her eyes, she can still spot the tip of the arrow reflecting in the raindrops. “He made a different call,” hisvoice echoes in her ears, as if he were right here.

( _I’m not gonna kill you, Widow)_

“And what will you do if I vow to spare him?”

Her voice is made of ice. “Not let you out,”

He laughs like a child in the middle of his favorite game, his glee bouncing off the walls. “Ah, but I like this. Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?” He’s mocking her, she knows it, but she doesn’t answer.

It’s one man. It’s Hawkeye. It’s Clint. And he’s gonna kick your ass, she should say.

She doesn’t.

She thinks, instead, it’s Clint. It’s Hawkeye. It’s my partner. And, as soon as he comes to, the world will regain its balance.

_ (And so will I.) _

Her voice is dry, her words harsh and bitter and just a tad bit nostalgic. “Regimes fall everyday. I tend not weep over that, I’m Russian,” she can feel snow on her skin, beneath her clothes. She tastes her nightmares on her tongue and her head is exploding with echoes of piercing screams that aren’t hers but feel like they are.

( _The screams you dream about,_ they told her, when S.H.I.E.L.D was trying to break her programming, _they are – were – uh, that… that voice was Kid You. They tortured you, Romanov._

She felt like she was about to gag.

“It’s _Romanoff_. I’m American now, aren’t I?” she said, creaking as though she hadn’t spoken for hours.)

“Or was.” It’s been years, but the sensation of being ripped apart every time she mentions Russia and its hold on her hasn’t really gone away.

_ (Chances are, it won’t ever go away) _

“What is it that you want?” Loki’s demand is soft spoken, and yet the words burn with impatience in her ears, as though he had something better to do with his time – like spreading his anger throughout the world and watch its match light up and grow and burn and stand bright until it dies in grey ash and Death swallows everything with his melody of silences and screams echoing in the night.

_ Cute picture, alright. _

Her voice is empty, a quick whisper in the night. Practical and cold and detached and everything her nightmares are made of. “It’s really not that complicated,” she begins, a drop of humor coloring her words for the space of a blink. “I’ve got red in my ledger,” she stops, and the rest of sentencerings like the strings of a violin, power and demand trembling on her tongue. “I’d like to wipe it out.”

Loki’s voice is a deep, bottomless pit.

( _It’s everything Clint’s voice has never been. Everything he’s shielded_ – irony keeps being a little bitch to her, switched path or not. Must be a hard field to work in these days, eh? – _from for all these years)_

“Can you? Can you wipe out that much red?” he asks, not expecting a real answer. 

She stays still, her voice lost somewhere in her body, as his voice grows malicious, carving itself in her memory. It’s a meaner version ofher own dubious headshakes and sweltering panic, back in her first days at S.H.I.E.LD.

Her personal Asgardian demigod-sized _I told you so, self._

“Drakov’s daughter? Sao Paulo? The hospital fire?” each event feels like a bullet he fires at her. “Your ledger is dripping, it’s gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?” it’s a fact he voices so calmly that her blood comes to a halt in her veins as if time had stopped and she were stuck under the fire of his blows.

His argument is a taunt, relentless and poisonous. “You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers,” again, her own doubts snarl back in her face and she sees herself in Rome all those years ago, soaked and hesitant in the wake of Clint’s offer. _I’d do nothing different from what I usually do._

Loki goes on and, as the saying goes, he keeps pushing the knife deeper and deeper into her wounds. Maybe he wants to take her apart, limb by limb, joint by joint, without spilling any blood. _He is a self-proclaimed pacifist, after all._

“You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, but they will never go away,” his voice raises, rage shining in his tone, and his hands grasp the bars. They shake as though his rage were their own and the strength of the gesture makes her flinch, her mask of composure broken.

He’s silent for a minute, the earthquake of his fury dying down like the tide. “I won’t touch Barton,” he swears.

Somehow, though, she doesn’t feel reassured, her senses screaming that this is nothing but words and, as much as he likes them big and gaudy, he does not abide by them at all.

“Not until I make him kill you,” he promises. And Natasha can do nothing but think, _he’s serious. Sick as hell, but deadly serious._ “Slowly. Intimately. And in every way he know you fear,” he bellows, his tone delirious with rage, menace dripping from every syllable. “And when he’ll wake just long enough to see his work,” he sounds joyous at the prospect of seeing Clint blink his way back into being Clint with his hands blood-stained. “And when he screams, I’ll split his skull!”

Her stomach dips down as he yells, her heart lodging itself in her throat as it beats furiously.

She’s tired, her words coming out drained and grim and thin. “You’re a monster.”

“No,” he says, not missing a beat. “You brought the monster.”

She turns, her composure back in place. “So, Banner,” she stops, silence sharpening the image of his plan. “That’s your play,” _Gotta say, it is kind of clever._

“What?” he’s surprised.

A little tip for you, buddy: _never underestimate a spider. Especially if it’s a Widow._

“Loki means to unleash The Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab, I’m on my way. Send Thor as well,” her words on the comm are brisk and efficient. She turns to Loki, her voice shining with pride. _I beat you. And it’s only a part of it._ “ Thank you for your cooperation,”

_ (Natasha doesn’t know yet, but this little chat will stay with her, merge into her nightmares shaking her from the inside each time Clint’s insecurities wake them both in the dead of night and her bare hands and words aren’t enough to keep him from falling. _

_ You ledger is dripping, forcing you on your knees and it always has been. _

_ He thought he could hold on you. Help you back on your feet and instead, you brought him down in the dirt and the pain and the pit of being broken with you. _

_ It’s all on you, Natasha) _

-:-

The explosion – also known as, Clint and his explosive arrows – has everyone rolling around, their direction unpredictable, like a flipper. _Great, I’m gonna throw up the few things I managed to eat._

She and Bruce end up in the darkness of the lower equipment room, no surface available to balance either of them as they fall.

_ As usual, those things mess up. _

Natasha sneaks a glance at Banner as his chest rises and falls following a rhythm she can’t ear.

It’s fast. _Too fast,_ she thinks as she notices his hands clenching. _Clench_ , _Release. Clench harder_.

She murmurs, voice thin, “I’m okay. We’re okay, right?” she admits that she’s slightly shaken and that she’s ridiculously close to hysteria, but the look in his eyes right now makes her bones scream, _run, Natasha. Run like hell._

_ No. Natasha Romanoff does not run. _

She fights.

“Doctor…” she pauses, the words sour in her mouth.

(Whenever she has an episode – even back when trust didn’t come easy to her, when he wasn’t her partner but just Hawkeye slash Agent Barton – Clint crunches in front of her, slow movements and calm born out of thousands of tries, and says in an even voice, “Natasha, it’s gonna be okay,” as he pries the gun or knife out of her whitened, clenched fingers, his touch lingering until she shakes her head and nods at him, warm and solid and real)

She starts again, softer this time. “Bruce, you gotta fight it,” _Yeah, you should totally pass up spying for pep talking, Romanoff._ “This is just what Loki wants. We’re gonna be okay, listen to me,”

S.H.I.EL.D soldiers approach and she nods, refusing their help. 

_ Your timing is really award-worthy, guys. _

“We’re gonna be okay. Right,” her doubts creep in, as unwanted as they are. “I swear on my life I’ll get you out of this. You will walk away and never…”

His dry voice cuts in, but it’s short lived. His sentence stops awkwardly and Bruce is gone.

There’s only the Hulk, all rage and roaring and strength.

“Bruce,” the name is a plea coming out of her throat in two halves, a breath of panic, her heartbeat drumming beneath her skin, furious and loud.

He doesn’t seem to hear her.

Hide and seek it is, then.

She hides and crawls and runs and fires to direct nitrogen at him.

_ No luck. _

Even Thor fights him – a dance of blows and ducks and muscles against muscles, thunder against rage – without success.

The room is mess of destruction and half standing structures enveloped in thick darkness – Hulk’s doing.

She stays there, her nerves burning, stress exploding in her limbs as adrenaline expires.

She hugs her body to herself, pressing her fingers to her knees, and she cries. 

( _For herself. For Clint. For the team. For this whole fucked up thing)_

_ Okay, Romanoff. You’ve fulfilled your breakdown quota for the time being. It’s time to get back up. _

Fury’s voice trembles over the comm. “It’s Barton,” he says. Judging by how his voice sounds, – cold, almost uninterested – he expected such a move. But there’s something else, too, hidden beneath the it’s-business-time tone. Something Natasha can’t quite put her finger on. “He took out our systems. He’s headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?”

She inhales deeply, her muscles still tightened with tension and memories of what has just happened with the Hulk. _Looks like processing time is over._ She blows her breath out,her mind already recalling every fighting move Clint has ever known –which they practiced together countless times. _Hell, she even taught him some new ones_ – and says, her voice calm as a spring breeze, “This is Agent Romanoff. I copy,”

(She hopes nobody notices the pit that has opened in her own words and the worry, no, the dread seeping through. Maybe it’s just a leftover of the Hulk being this close to smashing her in, but Natasha feels he throat constricting just a tiny bit at the idea of fighting Clint. And then she remembers, like a detail of a dream that she couldn’t recall until a moment ago, that Clint might be the one moving, but Loki’s the one deciding to move.)

She gets up and starts running, ignoring the protest of her stiffened body.

_ You’ve gone on and on about giving me a rematch for Rome, Hawkeye _ , she thinks, her inner voice nothing but an ensemble of dark tones. She’s not sure if it’s a hoarse whisper where the words are dipped in the same fatigue that she’s trying to push away from her limbs, or an angry shout that stretches out on her vocal cords, long and cold and filled with misconcealed worry. _Took me long enough to get the chance, eh?_

(There’s another possible shade her tone might be colored with, but it’s too deep and dark and emotion-filled and scary to consider. _A lost murmur, small and broken on the last syllable._ It rises up and up, all to way to her inner mouth and then stops a few inches away from her inner lips, pending.)

Her steps quicken, urgent and drum-like. She’s waited long enough.

-:-

The metal under her feet groans in tune with each blow. It’s a melody she’s used to – her attacks precise and his defense impeccable. 

She uses every single one of moves and Clint matches them, but there’s something in his eyes, so black she doubts they were blue once, she has never seen.

_ Emptiness. _ If there’s something she’s sure of it’s this: as long as she’s known him, Clint’s eyes have been everything but empty.

She hits and hits and hits, falls and gets back up.

She has no idea how long this fight, this never-ending dance, goes on,neither of them slipping up. Time seems to halt as the only rhythm they consider is that of their blows, following with matching grimaces.

She hits him in the head and he follow, who knows when.

He doesn’t get up and charge at her, so she carries him to the infirmary and ties him up, because he’s always been sneaky – and with Loki telling his brain which impulse it should send, that has surely only worsened.

She sits beside him like she has done so many times and cities appear in her head.

Budapest and the first blooms of trust, Prague and guilt shrinking her insides, Cairo and fire surging just a tad beneath her skin, Berlin and her body arching under his, her lips shaping a moan and then, like a knife digging into her gut,Cordoba and his whispers into her skin and her fear and the trip back to the U.S and his silence, cold and hard and paralyzing.

He wakes, and his eyes, as blue as she remembers them from one of their nights in Budapest while he told her of his brother, take in the room.

He’s disoriented and angry and unsure. A caged animal. She says, in a low voice, “Clint, you’re gonna be alright,”

He’s frantic, words rushing out of his mouth. “You know that? Is that what you know?”

Natasha swallows hard, her mouth dry. 

She knows what he must be feeling. She has gone through breaking her programming more times than she likes to think about and her opinion is pretty much something like, _it’s hell._

Clint’s rant goes on, desperation creeping in his words, “Do you know what it’s like to be undone?”

She does. 

Acting as though you weren’t a person, everything that makes you who you are destroyed in the wake of someone else’s goal, your mind a blank slate where any message – any belief – can be carved.

( _Kill, kill, kill and enjoy it, Natalia)_

Her voice is at its smallest when she replies, breathless and sad, “You know that I do,”

He relaxes just enough for his desperation to die down. 

She unties him as he thanks her for bringing him back. _Really Clint?After everything we’ve endured you thank me for looking out for you? Besides, if I hadn’t, who’d have kept up with me?_

Guilt invades his voice as he asks, “How many Agents, Tasha?”

She shakes her head.

There’s no use for this. Not now. Not when the real culprit is still out there and they lose time and opportunities with each word they share.

“Don’t do this, Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for,” it’s a prayer that leaves her lips unintentionally. Softness and steel lacing her tone at the same time.

She needs him on his feet, because she hasn’t forgotten the Demigod’s words and she fears she will be stuck in his insinuations all of sudden, and getting up looks as hard as it never has before.

They talk about him and his plans. About stopping him.

Clint knows she’s never wanted to be part of a war and calls her out on her sudden resolve to have Loki defeated, surprise spilling out of his question. And then, in the softer tone that he uses when she wakes him up after a nightmare, “What did Loki do to you?”

Her answer is pronounced in the same shaky murmur that she draws her nightmares with. “I’ve been compromised,”

And just like that, Team Delta walks into a war.

-:-

The battle is a mess. Chiaris are coming from every possible direction, Loki is nowhere to be seen

They fight as the city around them falls to its knees, gunshots and arrows and the shield lost in the cacophony of explosions and screams and death.

She and Clint find themselves firing bullets and arrows back to back, adrenaline drumming through their bodies, and it almost feels like habit.

“Just like Budapest all over again,” she yells over the sound of the battle, loud and chaotic and familiar, her hand pressed on the trigger.

“You and I,” he replies as he knocks an arrow and takes aim, his voice half a whisper of concentration half a mumbling of snark that is purely Clint. “Remember Budapest very differently,”

She is well aware of that, but whichever point of view they use to recall Budapest – hers, where that mission represents the trust she developped toward him, or his, where the mission is painted both with loss over his hearing, and hope as far as his partnership with Natasha is concerned – it is the beginning of Team Delta. It’s the beginning of the _Barton-And-Romanoff_ dynamic and the beginning of her life as Natasha.

_ (it’s the beginning and they’re always going to recall it, as if to remind themselves, we’ve begun but we haven’t ended) _

-:-

In the end, Stark almost dies trying to close the portal and New York will surely end up having scars, – like them – but they make it.

They save the city and Loki is defeated.

They part ways and New York rebuilds.

So do they, nursing their wounds and going back to missions magic has no part in.

They fall back into their habits.

( _but there’s a cost no one ever fanthomed._

_ Phil dies. _

_ Their nightmares increase. _

_ Life goes on and their demons only grow) _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
